


Bretwalda

by Aeshna etonensis (GMWWemyss)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Reality, Gen, M/M, Multiple Universes, SF/AH/AU, wibbly wobbly timey wimey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-21
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 07:32:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1217767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GMWWemyss/pseuds/Aeshna%20etonensis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dream? Nightmare? Trip? Worse. There are multiple universes and realities after all, it seems. And post-apocalyptic Britain, fragmented and yearning for unity, has been waiting to be saved. By the Expected Ones, who can give a distracted and battered set of islands (wait for it) one, new direction.</p><p>Well, that, or Niall really ought not to have finished off that dodgy curry....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gerontius

**Author's Note:**

  * For [noeon (noe)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/noe/gifts), [Bubba (absynthedrinker)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/absynthedrinker/gifts), [Femme (femmequixotic)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/femmequixotic/gifts), [tree_and_leaf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tree_and_leaf/gifts), [elmyraemilie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elmyraemilie/gifts).



> They say a change is as good as going on hols. (Mind you, ‘they’ also said the EU’d work, and that the Environment Agency knew best when it came to dredging, and that Gordon had eliminated the economic cycle….)
> 
> Be that as it may, here is a new bit of something-or-other. It shall be updated; but those updates shall be sporadic. It is a toy, for moments when I can face neither another moment of 1914 nor another second in the Woolfonts; but obviously the actual books I am engaged in writing do come first, both the Great War centenary history and the second novel in the Village Tales series (yes, yes. Look things out on the Net, if you’re thus made curious, do).
> 
> It exists, I suspect, because I am constitutionally incapable of simple enjoyment. (I should have quite liked to have been able to get into _Merlin;_ but I could never make it through the credits without shouting historian’s complaints at the telly. No matter how pretty the boys. In the same way, much as I enjoy some AUs in this fandom … well.) That granted, no reader I think wants to be any sort of expert to enjoy this footling SF/AH/AU bastardisation, simply.

* * *

 

Could you die in dreams? That is, if you died in your dream, would you die in real life at the same moment? He’d never wondered, until now; but he’d never had a dream so vividly _real_ as this. And … well. If you could, if you did, he was about to. The men in odd clothes and bits of – armour, he supposed (and he was wearing, he realised, trackies, trainers, a band tee, and a plaid shirt, just as he had been when he’d dozed off: none of which was going to offer the least protection) – the armoured men now running in to the dusty, cavernous room, drawing swords – actual sodding _broadswords_ – suggested the imminence of death rather strongly.

The cloud of dust that billowed up when they cast down their swords, hilts towards him, before his feet, and each sank to one knee, suggested otherwise. As did the evident leader’s bellow of ‘At youer ommicks, Haiver Mon, sah!’

Before he could manage a reply for dust and coughing and the sudden, choking shock of hearing pure Yam Yam from these madmen, another man, older and bent, hurried in as best he could, wearing what appeared to be a ragged pastiche of vestments in what might have passed, on a dark afternoon, for purple.

‘Thank God,’ said the old man. His accent was strongly Wulfrunian, not outright Black Country, and seemed perhaps marginally more educated than that of the – _were_ they soldiers?

‘Oh, thank _God,_ ’ the elderly party repeated. ‘We be yours. Speak and we’ll do.’

‘Er. Could we, um, get this place cleaned up a bit, for starters? Please,’ said Liam, weakly. And coughed again on dust.

* * *

Whilst a number of wide-eyed men and women in – Liam supposed it to be homespun: wool and linen by the look of it – hastened into the large room he’d found himself in, presumably to dust the ruddy thing, the old clergyman ( _clearly_ he was a clergyman) steered him out of doors to a cracked pavement by a cracked street, almost all its metal gone, deep-rutted by … cartwheels, perhaps? The sky was steely; the wind, cold. Liam turned back towards the building and looked up; and staggered. He’d never actually in his life fainted, although he’d come close a time or two; but he felt as if he were about to begin.

The weathered façade, the shattered, patched roof, the remnant outline…. He knew this building (as a landmark, not otherwise: he’d always been a _good_ lad). This was not a dream of the past; but, rather, of a future he wasn’t liking the look of. This was what the old Wolvo town hall – the magistrates court on North Street, in his reality – must surely be after centuries of neglect and loss.

And the soldiers – that was how he had resolved to think of them until corrected – had cast their swords (why _swords,_ he wondered) at his feet – his ommicks – and called him the Big Man, the chief, the Haiver Mon….

‘Where am I? No. Wait. I think I know that – I hope I don’t, but I do. _When_ am I?’

The old clergyman looked at him from under bushy, white brows. Liam noted, idly, that the man appeared to be of mixed heritage – including, by the epicanthic folds of his eyes, partly Oriental. ‘Sir…. Be the Fest of St Peter. June-end.’

 _Cold for the end of June,_ thought Liam. ‘The year. The _year._ Please, sir.’

‘Sir. Be Year 216, Newcount; Christyear 2231, if it please Sir.’

Liam shut his eyes and breathed carefully through his nose for a calming moment.

‘Be a deal to take in, Sir, I knows. We been waiting on yow.’

‘I want the boys,’ breathed Liam, largely to himself. ‘I need them here. Mostly, I need Zayn.’

* * *

Harry was going to give him a Disappointed Look (‘you’re brilliant, yah, books and art and music, but you couldn’t park a bicycle’). Niall would mock him mercilessly, simply to teach him a lesson. Louis … Louis would _slay_ him. They all knew the stupidity, the sheer fucking _risk,_ of leaving your drink unattended for the least slice of a second’s time. And Liam … he didn’t want to think what Liam was going to think, and say, and do.

Zayn opened his eyes again. Well, _fuck._ Still tripping, then. Standing on what might have been the stage of St George’s Hall, Bradford, after an apocalypse, crumbling timbers and fallen, rusted organ pipes – and in nowt but a bloody towel. _Deffo_ tripping. He hoped someone – well, all right, Liam – would find him, and get Paul. Even if the trip to hospital made the red tops and he were dragged through muck – again.

That was when the dozen middle-aged men in cod-mediaeval finery burst in, dragging their caps off and bowing. The Black British one with a tarnished chain ’round his neck was evidently in charge, and some part of Zayn – tripping or not – was idly amused that even in his current state, Yorkshiremen, however imaginary, remained Yorkshiremen. For, after bowing, the man shook his head, and said, ‘Ey, lad. Not what we were ’spectin’…. Coom tha – well, ba goom, tha’s on Gaaarge’s Stage ba’ thi kecks and all. Let alone ba’ t’ hat…. This bain’t Ilkla Moor, lad.’

Zayn clutched ineffectually at his bath-towel, and wished desperately for Liam to find him. _Soon._

* * *

He _knew_ he oughtn’t to have eaten that curry, on top of everything else, and so late in the night. And with whiskey. But … the food had been goin’ _begging,_ so it had, and good Irish whiskey with it….

Niall blinked again. Well. If he _must_ be having weird dreams…. Why not home, though? Why this post-disaster landscape that looked as if Derby City’s ground had been abandoned for two hundred years?

He heard shouting, and running feet, and a strange clanking noise. Lovely. Apparently dodgy curry meant you didn’t dream of fit birds, but of shouty Englishmen….

* * *

Louis sank onto the rabbit-burrowed turf, amidst what his subconscious evidently thought was Doncaster Racecourse after mankind was extinct. Oh: no, they weren’t: a great number of people, very oddly dressed, were running towards him. At least he saw no pitchforks.

‘Well, fuck me,’ said he, and wished he could wake at least sufficiently to find the comforter, or that Haz would come back to bed. He was bleeding well _freezing_ in his vest and pants.

* * *

He was going to _kill_ Grimmy. He didn’t know when or how or why someone had – as someone _clearly_ had – slipped something in his food or drink or, he didn’t know, toothpaste or – anyway – but he knew _who,_ because no one else could have had access but the lads, and they’d _never._

Harry felt sick. Not so much from physical causes; but there was something truly frightening about seeing, from a ruined and deserted London Road, the crumbling church-tower of St Luke’s. There, surely, was a vision of the pub – the old Red Lion – after God knew what cataclysm; which meant – oh, God – that those ruins just there in the middle distance must be, horribly, what should remain, after some unimagined disaster, of Mandeville’s bakery. Perhaps in that rubble there might be the last peeling gilt of the old sign on its claret background: W. Mandeville, Grocer & Baker, Maker of Hovis….

He whirled ’round. Lean, alert men and women, his mum’s age and older, a few as old as his gran, queerly attired, were walking towards him gravely, processionally. He bit his lips, hard. If they spoke….

He screamed when they did, as he had feared; he did not, as he’d hoped he might, scream himself awake. They seemed perfectly polite; they were dismayed and concerned by his screaming; but he couldn’t help it. For they had spoken, and not in English.

* * *

The old clergyman had walked Liam, gently and solicitously, to the wild garden that had once been the trim gardens of St Peter’s Close. Liam had taken one look at the old Saxon Cross, now immeasurably older than when he had known it, ancient though it had been then, and looked away.

‘Who are you?’

‘Sir. Be Bishop Ste, son o’ Dec, son o’ Tone, be I.’

‘You’re – you’re a bishop.’

‘Sir. Bishop of the Bilset.’

Liam sat down, and shook his head. If he shivered, just a trifle, he could blame the unseasonable coolth.

‘If it’s 2231…. I thought by now we’d have colonies on Mars. Instead, we’ve people running about with _swords._ Not even…. Wait. You said the year was “216 Newcount”: what’s that, Bishop?’

‘Yearcount started over, Sir. After allthings went titsup.’

Liam simply stared. A mild old bishop had just said…. ‘We don’t even speak the same English,’ muttered Liam.

‘Sir.’ The Bishop – _a bishop named ‘Ste’,_ Liam thought; _his mind in dreams was really_ not _a sane place_ – spoke pleadingly. ‘Been longtime since I used the hightalk.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Will try.’

‘What _happened,_ sir, two hundred years ago?’

‘Much,’ said the bishop, with a look of pain. ‘Started when … Ketlafart, first.’

Liam goggled.

‘The … dear.’ The old man was clearly searching for words long sunk into desuetude. ‘The – volcano. Yes. Ketla. Iceland. Blew. E-rupt-ed. Very big blowup. Changed weather. Many died. Cold. Colder even than nowtimes.’

‘But – that was two centuries ago.’

‘Sir, I did said _“started”_ with Ketlafart. Didden end with that, anyroadup. Ketla … had icehat. Glac-i-er. Flood, after. Skycarts … oh, dear, whatname, whatname – ah. Aeroplays. Crashed. Weather went bad. But there were more. Didden end. Next big titsup wor sunbelch.’ The bishop thought, silently, for a good minute and a half. ‘Crownal mash ejecting? Summat like. Was last belch before sunsleep. And … eeyempee. Juice blew. Allthings juiced bangedout. Can’t fix. No juice. Some monks can read and knowhow. But no makebase, no – dear, dear – no manufactory capaciting? Too many dead. Too many tools to make tools to make tools dead, too, bangedout because of no juice. Why swords, as well….

‘Humble sorries, Sir. Am not very clever bishop, me. Bilset very small tribe. I can read prayerbook, chant, but….’

‘It’s quite all right,’ said Liam, earnestly. He knew the feeling. ‘Er…. You said, “tribe”?’

‘Sir. Bilset. Nearto Wolvo. No bishop in Wolvo now. Last one sleep in God. No new one yet.’

‘But the government? The Crown – Her Majesty and her successors – and….’

The old man looked at him with awe. ‘Sir knew oldkings and oldqueen? Saints.’ His voice changed to a pulpit tone. ‘“We ’member this day the Ro’l Martyrs”…. Died, serving country. Trying to holdfast allthings. Lizbet and Charles Old after, and Williambald and George Last – and Harry Braveprince…. Saints.’

Liam felt his eyes fill with tears.

* * *

A very old woman was comforting him, in a sing-song voice; but if the accent was vaguely Welsh, she was speaking at least in something close to English.

‘Sir, Sir…. Lamb…. Never you fear, Sir, we been waiting and you be welcome.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Harry, thickly. ‘I’m not a coward, really.’

‘Course you don’t be, Sir. Course you don’t.’

* * *

Everyone had been talking at once – and so far as Louis could make out, talking sharn, in a truly shit dialect that made _him_ sound like a Cambridge don – far too loudly and far too long.

‘Are you quite finished,’ he snapped. It was a query only in form.

* * *

‘All right, now, all right,’ said Niall. ‘Jaysus. Is there any nosh? ’M not goin’ hungry during the craic. And don’t talk over each other, but.’

* * *

Zayn had been fortunate – well, for a man on a long, strange trip. If one played along with the notion that this was reality, he’d been lucky enough. He’d been – no one had yet explained why or how – ‘expected’; and Bradford (the alleged, psychedelic ‘Bradford’: what in buggery _had_ been slipped into his pint?) wasn’t so very far from York.

A man with rather more flesh than anyone he’d yet seen – apparently the people in his drug-induced vision didn’t eat very well – had arrived, now, with a lean, hawk-like man who was clearly, to Zayn’s relief, a fellow British Pakistani.

‘Sir! Welcome. I am Jack, Cardinal-Archbishop of York; allow me to present Dr Khan, Head of the Islamic Council of the North.’

‘Er, yeah, hullo. ’M Zayn. Zayn Malik.’

Dr Khan swept him a very respectful bow. ‘My _malik._ _As-salam alaykum._ ’

‘ _Wa ‘alaykumu s-salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh._ Um. What … can anyone tell me what is going _on_?’

‘Indeed, Sir. May I first present the Council of Leedis?’

* * *

Liam felt a headache coming on. It wasn’t the fault of the bishop, who seemed a lovely – and anxious – man.

‘What do you mean, I was expected?’

* * *

It was, Niall felt, rather like a video game. At least that was the only way forward he saw. He’d have to play it out until he woke or pulled out of this in some way. He got everyone’s attention, as they wrangled, with a sharp, shrill whistle.

‘Chrisht, then,’ said he. ‘And how do I get t’ Wolverhampton from here, then?’ Niall had twigged to this at least already: if his character – sanity inhered in playing this like a video game – if his character had spawned in Derby rather than in Mullingar, there was a reason; the quest, his mission, which he was beginning to guess from these people’s comments to be his alone, meant finding the others; and if the others’ character avatars had spawned in their own places, Liam was nearest. And, besides, it was never less than the best course of action to go and team up with Daddy Direction. Liam mightn’t be clever the way Zayn was, say, and maybe he took games and sport and so on far too seriously; but Haz and Louis took them far too lightly, and Liam had more _practical_ sense than all of them – Niall included, as he readily admitted – together.

* * *

‘Elmet,’ said Louis, in tones of disgust. He’d _hated_ history at school. ‘You lot do talk a lot of shit.’

* * *

‘I really don’t understand this at all,’ said Harry, slowly, brow furrowed.

* * *

‘Um … 1653? 2231 CE?’ Zayn pinched the bridge of his nose.

Dr Khan looked embarrassed. ‘ _About_ 1653, my _malik._ We … rather lost count. Unlike our Christian brethren, whose calendar is more readily calculated.’

Zayn simply looked at them: the Chairman of the Council, Bill Dick’s Son; Dr Khan; and the Archbishop. ‘What. Happened.’

‘Ah.’ The Archbishop looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s a long story, and I’m not quite certain any of us left understands it fully.’

* * *

‘Be all British yet,’ said Bishop Ste, earnestly. ‘But no Britain. Not nomore.’

The leader of the soldiers who had first hailed him approached them, and brought his hand to his brow as he faced Liam. It appeared to be a sort of salute.

Liam inclined his head.

‘Sah!’

‘Sir,’ said Bishop Ste. ‘Be Sar-Madger Tim son o’ Tom.’

‘S- oh. Sergeant-Major?’

‘Sah!’ The man’s posture was if anything now more erect with pride, as if the elder form of the rank was an especial honour.

‘Be head of Mershan Redge Men,’ said the bishop.

‘The – the Mercian Regiment?’

‘Sah.’

‘How … how many men, Sergeant-Major?’ Liam was silently blessing the fact that he and the lads had played a good deal of _Call of Duty._ It made it easier to blag this.

‘Five hunnid eight an’ seventy, Sah!’

‘And you are the, um, ranking … man.’

‘Sah!’

‘Well. Excellent. Very good.’ He’d a feeling he sounded like John Cleese’s Robin Hood in _Time Bandits,_ but, reflected Liam, it was the best he could manage.

* * *

‘It started,’ said the Archbishop, ‘with the eruption of Katla, in Iceland. Well. Actually, it _started_ with Katla, the whole island more or less blew up by the end. Terrible. The records say – it means nothing to us now, but perhaps to you it may convey … well – the records…. Whatever a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 7 is, it was. It was terrible enough. But we might have survived that. Sadly, it coincided with other disasters; within five years, the sun entered a severe, um – what was it again, my dear Khan?’

‘A “solar minimum”, Eminence.’

‘Yes. Thank you. The ice age we might have borne – indeed, we _are_ bearing it. But there was a – I’ll have it in a moment, I did mug all this up, you know, so as to be ready for you – yes, that’s it, a really quite large coronal mass ejection with it. Massive thing. Aurorae in North Africa, and all that; a – correct me if I get this wrong, my dear Doctor – a geomagnetic storm, with it. Well. Of course that simply _fried_ everything. I mean electrics and all. Satellites crashing to earth, communications gone, nothing working…. And we were so dependent on _that,_ on electrics, I mean,that we couldn’t replace them, because what was wanted to make them was itself dependent on things that had fried, which couldn’t be replaced because the things that made _them_ had fried, and – well, so on down.

‘People struggled on, you know, as they will. But…. The Royal Martyrs strove for four generations to pull us back up. But the Forces were reduced to swords and bows and rifled muskets, things a village smithy could turn out without electrics, and the Royal Navy had to learn _sail_ again, and as for money and taxes…. Banking went, and the City, quite as swiftly as manufactures; and policing; and George the Last died trying his best, and there was disease, and plagues, and – you’d not think there’d be no clear heir left, but there had been _so_ much death.’

‘The UK –’

‘In theory, we are a United Kingdom. _The_ United Kingdom. But without a king. The Big Salmon was hanged from an inn sign in Embra; we and Eire actually reunited, in desperation –’

‘“Huddling together for warmth”, was the saying,’ said Dr Khan, grimly. ‘What happened in Europe – doesn’t bear speaking of. We and the Jews: well, we became brothers _then,_ at last. In _blood._ Had it not been for Francis II….’

Zayn’s eyes widened. ‘ _Oh._ You said – you _said,_ “Cardinal-Archbishop”….’

‘Emergencies do lead to many differences being put aside,’ said York.

Zayn shook his head. ‘Those were big differences.’

‘It wasn’t easy. There are – well. The Abrahamic faiths – we have complete freedom of religion, yet, and ever shall, I trust, but – the Abrahamic faiths have worked together for generations now, agreeing to disagree on theology, united in serving. The Nonconformists united, and are in amity with Holy Church; we … compromised….’

‘He refers,’ said Dr Khan, ‘to women.’

‘They don’t celebrate Mass,’ said York, ‘but there are far more deaconesses, and sisters in orders, than priests, and they do everything _save_ that; and the Abbesses’ Council works with the Bench of Bishops in all things. Quite frankly, Mother Jade may very well have more power in the Church than I do. Or possibly than the Holy Father has.’

‘And that, my _malik,_ ’ said Dr Khan, ‘is where power _is._ This is why we tell you these things. The Cardinals – the current Cardinal; there is a vacancy at Canterbury – and I and my fellows, and the Moderator, and the Abbesses, and the Chief Rabbi…. There is no parliament. There is no king. The peerage was hit hard: say what you like, but they had standards, the majority of them, and they died trying to help others, most of them, and share the suffering. Those who are left refuse to take power, for fear of creating a struggle that would finish us. The country has fragmented, to a few days’ ride and a local economy, small tribes and petty statelets. Bilston – _Bilston_ – is its own tribe, now, the Bilsets. Elmet, Deira, Leedis….’

‘But. Democracy, like –’

‘We have it. Like all else, it is local. Do you really not grasp, Sir, what the loss of computers, and wired schools and archives, and mechanised transport, and the wireless and telly, and the NHS and modern medicine, has meant?’

* * *

‘No officers.’ Liam spoke quietly; he and the bishop had withdrawn a few paces from the Sergeant-Major.

‘Be no king,’ said Bishop Ste. ‘No … c-, c- … dear, dear … no commissions. We been waiting on you, Sir, like as I said.’

* * *

‘But _why?_ ’

‘Oh, Sir. Books mostly gone – or there, but who do read now? We keeps mindful, _in_ mind.’

Harry shook his head, slowly. ‘But – you can’t memorise things like that.’

The old dear smiled. ‘We can do, Sir. _Course_ we can. We _sings_ ’em.’

* * *

 


	2. Dream Children

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thickies plot and the plot thickens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Other calls on my time having been temporarily resolved, here is another thrilling chapter of this desultory indulgence.

* * *

 

* * *

1\. Time and place

* * *

It was a relief and a comfort to Liam to find that – whether in impossible reality or implausible dream – Wolvo remained in many ways Wolvo: as witness his guest and – he was resolved – his advisor henceforward.

The Bishop had, humbly and diffidently, suggested him; and Liam had seized upon the suggestion with relief. Apocalypses or no apocalypses, so long as Wolverhampton survived, it seemed, there should be a Mander to hand. And Sir Septimus Mander, baronet of The Mount, spare, bright-eyed, gently humorous, and shrewd, was precisely what a Mander ought to be and precisely what Liam was in want of. The man was a positive tonic.

‘Well, Sir, we’ve believed it, as a matter of faith – which means, I’m afraid, rather perfunctorily, as the years have passed –, since the disasters. I don’t pretend to understand the whole boiling myself: I read neither Physical Philosophy nor Perennials when I was up. (The House, you know, now once more under cardinalatial oversight. Oh, yes, Sir, of _course_ Oxford has survived. Naturally.) Yet … well, we’re not _surprised_ to find we were right to expect you, and, I make sure, the others.

‘It wasn’t precisely prophecy, you know, Sir. I really don’t quite grasp the idea, but when Penrose and Hawking – and, in the end, much against his will, Grayling – came to agree with Polkinghorne and Stannard, and Freeman Dyson, too, well.... And here you are, Sir, after all: the proof of the pudding.’

* * *

Professor Lewis-Cohen had joined the Cardinal-Archbishop and Dr Khan in briefing Zayn.

‘... physics, Sir, rather than religious prophecy. No one is claiming,’ smiled the Professor, devastatingly (Melanie Lewis-Cohen was hands-down the prettiest physicist in history), ‘that there was any recent _prophecy._ ’

It was when Dr Khan shook his head indulgently and the Cardinal-Archbishop winked that Zayn twigged to the point being made – and the deference to his and Dr Khan’s religious sensibilities.

‘It was a _prediction_.

‘In our history – no. Allow me to clarify, Sir. As a matter of Feynman quantum decoherence – well, no, _that_ doubtless suggests _in_ coherence on my part, as far as explanations go, doesn’t it. Perhaps this may help. Whether one regards the anthropic principle as strong or as weak.... Bugger, I’m not explaining this at all well.’

She took a deep breath and appeared to think, hard, for several moments.

‘Do I recall correctly, Sir, that – well, in _our_ history – Sir, you are in fact a considerable consumer of, mm, comic books and graphic novels and, ah, superhero … things?’

‘Yes.... _Oh!_ Yes.’

Professor Lewis-Cohen sighed in relief. ‘Then you’ll have some idea, however fictionalised, of the multiverse, and the theory – well, observable fact, at this point – of “many worlds”. When I say, then, “our” history, I am referring to the concept of multiple histories as a subset of the Many Worlds Interpretation in quantum mechanics. The past is malleable – in quantum terms – precisely as is the future; it is uncertain, in the senses we associate with Heisenberg and with Schrödinger.

‘In _our_ past, then, there was a series of natural disasters which coincided with the beginning of this Little Ice Age of ours, this solar minimum and its effects. At the same time, some physicists and philosophers had proposed with increasing confidence that the MWI was not only capable of proof or disproof, it could be subjected to proof or disproof. And it was.

‘Plaga-Itano-Deutsch tests were performed before the crisis – just –: and the coupling between worlds was found to be much stronger than predicted or imagined.’

* * *

‘So,’ said Liam, trying not to become excited, ‘we’re – it’s like time-travel?’

‘So I understand, Sir,’ said Sir Septimus.

Liam beamed for the first time since this appalling situation had commenced. ‘Bostin’!’

* * *

‘... counterparts, Sir. You might regard it as a form of time-travel which adheres to Novikov Self-Consistency. You are an alternate or counterpart you; this is a parallel world.’

‘But – but what about the other Li- – the other me? Or – I mean me and _all_ the other alternates?’

The good professor looked a trifle embarrassed. Dr Khan did not, and simply nodded to the Cardinal-Archbishop.

‘Sir,’ said the Cardinal-Archbishop, in kindly tones, ‘that is more my province, and Dr Khan’s.’

‘It is,’ agreed Dr Khan. ‘But you cannot doubt, my _malik,_ that the All-Beneficent is present for your good in all possible worlds in which you exist or can exist. And in each of these, I am assured, you are with Liam.’

* * *

‘Sir, I haven’t the least idea, as a practical man, how quantum immortality works. That you are here is enough for me. And that you never, in this world, precisely died.’

‘What?’

Sir Septimus smiled. ‘You haven’t even a cenotaph – you or the other lads. Memorials, certainly; but you’ve always been regarded as the Kings Beneath the Mountains. The five of you simply _vanished,_ under notable circumstances – in our history, that is to say: or “anyroadup” as the marketplace ballads put it.’

* * *

2\. Niall Horan and the Witch of Edensor

* * *

Multiple feckin’ worlds, was it? Jaysus, and wouldn’t _that_ do a man’s head in....

It didn’t, concluded Niall, matter.

Nor did it matter that – so far as he could get at it, amidst all the welter of talk – this world … well. In this scenario (and sanity wanted that he treat it as just that), there were multiple worlds, multiverses, and him travelling between them, or so they were telling him. Mad, it was. Worlds in which Zed had left – or hadn’t, but had been portrayed, in some daft scheme, as having left – the band.... Worlds in which there were more startling differences nor _that._ Worlds – would you credit – in which Tommo’d reproduced, without there’s being a test tube and a jar involved, as if that man-een might touch a woman’s lady-parts but falling down in a dead faint. And then _this_ world as they claimed it?

Mother o’ God.

Disasters and sunspots – or, rather, none, to be sure, and wasn’t that the problem – and Ireland back into the UK and – ah, it was daft, but: Liam made a duke, and Zayn and Haz marquesses, and Tommo an earl, and himself at last worn down to accept a barony and the first appointment to the Order of St Patrick, long dormant, in near a century.... But, then, what for would they not be, if this scenario, this game, were real? And a foretelling with it, sure, that they’d come back after vanishing.... Vanishing: after earning the titles; earning them by working like navvies to help keep things together, and using their fame and the love of the masses abroad to help save Mother Ireland and old England alike. Vanishing, it being foretold they’d vanish and none knowing when or how it might be, at any hour, in the twinkling of an eye, against which they’d been given the titles, too; vanishing on a last desperate flight to North America, which had yet loved them enough to take them as ambassadors making an appeal; vanishing, and theirs the only bodies not found of all who were on the flight, disappearing into the myths.

Jaysus. The _daoine sídhe_ wasn’t in it, sure.

Well, he couldn’t but play the game until he woke or came to himself whatever, mad though the scenario be; immersive as the game was.

What it was troubled him, was … he wasn’t clever as _that._ If all this were in his mind, his mind were a wilder – and better-stocked – place nor he’d have believed.

Chrisht but it _looked_ real, and real in ways he’d not have imagined (though he must have done, for wasn’t it all imaginary, sure?). The shrunken cities, the villages turned hamlets, the wilded countryside.... Oh, there were bits of it might have come from his own subconscious, sure: the Church of Ireland and the C of E back in communion with the Holy Father, and even the _real_ Prods being decent about things, and All Ireland reunited. But was it him as’d conjure in his sleeping mind the changes in heathland and habitat, the recovery and range of butterflies, the weather of a colder world?

He’d stopped them all, the Derby folk, in the midst of explanations which explained nought. And got down to the practicalities.

And then he’d sent a letter, by horse-courier ( _horses;_ Jaysus): to, they told him, His Grace the duke of Walsall, who was also the marquess Wednesbury; earl of Bilston (of the second creation); viscount Wombourne; baron Willenhall; baron Darlaston; Knight of the Garter, Privy Counsellor of monarchs long dead, the deathless returned, the lord of Mercia: in fact, to Liam, blest reliable Liam, who, sure, ’d be the only other sane man about, and twice over as against Zed and Haz and Lou. The Derbymen had made certain that if _Niall_ were returned to them from … wherever it was: the _sídhe,_ the courts and palaces of the Good Folk, the mounds, the invisible dominion of the _daoine sídhe_ … if Niall were returned to them, then, sure there must be the lord of Mercia in his chamber in Wolverhampton, but, and Liam, His Grace of Walsall, must be returned also....

* * *

3\. Place and time and futures past

* * *

‘... services to Crown and country, Sir. It was already known that the five of you at any moment might vanish, to return – like Arthur – in our hour of need.’ Sir Septimus chortled. ‘I suppose one at least of you ought really to have emerged near Mobberley.... But there it is. You, Sir, were made a duke. Zayn Malik was created marquess of Birkenshaw; earl of Thornbury; viscount Laisterdyke; baron Malik; and baron Cullingworth; and appointed GCMG, KCVO, and PC. Harry Styles became the marquess Winsford; earl Styles; viscount Cranage; and baron Swettenham – and GBE CMG PC. And after much persuasion, Niall Horan grudgingly accepted creation as baron Litchurch. Of course, after Reunification, he was advanced as baron Litchurch and Ballyglass in the UK peerage, and baron Horan of Chaddesden and Balnamona in the Peerage of Ireland; and in addition to being made GCB, he became the first new Knight of St Patrick in the reconstituted Order, and was sworn of the Privy Council like the rest of you.’

‘What – what about Louis?’

Sir Septimus grinned. ‘By all accounts, he was difficult about it.’ Liam didn’t bother to pretend surprise. ‘With Lord Litchurch – Niall – the issue was political. Irish nationalism, you know. But Tomlinson.... By all accounts, when it was put up to him, he all but donned a flat ’at, called a whippet to heel, and did his Professional Yorkshireman turn, with a Red, Labour rosette to his lapels and a class-based chip on each shoulder. At the same time, once he decided to follow the rest of you, he was sarky about being created “only” an earl – even though he’d denounced the whole bloody notion, with a good deal of Tyke truculence and “bah goom”-ery and a general air of Geoff Boycott.’

‘An … earl.’ Liam had been, if asked, the first to admit that this whole mad dream had left him so fundamentally and comprehensively stunned that he could hardly be any longer surprised.

‘Oh, yes; on the other hand, he and he alone was the one of the five of you appointed OM. He became earl of Hexthorpe; viscount Cusworth; baron Armthorpe; baron Branton; KBE – another sore spot –, OM, and PC. It’s said that he wasn’t thrilled about the titles – I mean, the places chosen as well as the ranks, and particularly the territorial designation for the earldom; until Lord Birkenshaw – Zayn, you know – gave him an old fashioned look and told him it might, after all, have been, “Nutwell”. _That_ shut Hexthorpe up.’

* * *

4\. Niall Horan and the Witch of Edensor

* * *

Niall’s letter to Liam had all but _told_ that man to sit tight, and Niall’d be with him in a fortnight. Which, thought Niall, was cheek on his part, ordering DJ Payno about – if there were a word of truth to what the Derby folk’d been after telling him. Although, if there _were_ to be planning against a disaster, and the reappearance of themselves after fifteen generations, arranging in advance that Payno was to be first amongst equals was the course of wisdom.

Niall preferred not to think very much about Tommo’s likely reaction to that.

Titles and honours.... And what for were they created hereditary peers but this, thought Niall: the preserving of the blood, and the justification for the only appointments that mattered at all whatever. Big Payno was Big Payno whether dustman or duke; Zayner was DJ Malik whether a marquess or no. But it helped, supposed Niall, to give peerage titles to five mad lads if you were going to make them – first by Orders in Council and then, Chrisht, by an Act o’ Parliament – Vice-Lieutenants ‘for life’: with the proviso that they weren’t expected to _die,_ as a matter of law. He himself – Jaysus; it was madness – even he, Niall Horan of Mullingar, was, they told him, Lord Lieutenant, Governor-General, and Viceroy of Ireland to this day, with Lords Deputy succeeding over the centuries in his absence, and should be Viceroy ‘until the death of the said Holders of Office or any one of them shall have been proven and established as set forth in Section 31C of this Act, no leave being granted to presume their death’. And he was Vice-Lieutenant of Derbyshire – and of Nottinghamshire – for life. Liam, they told him, was Vice-Lieutenant for life of Staffs and the West Midlands; Zayner, of West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire, Northumberland, and Durham; and Hazza, of Cheshire, Greater Manc, Lancs, and Cumbria. Tommo, God help them all, was Vice-Lieutenant for life of South Yorks and of the East Riding: and that, thought Niall, could be a bit dicey.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love or trust Tommo. But the wee man-een did like to lead; and the wee man-een was aisy led, so he was.

And _that_ made a difference.

Niall and his party were afloat upon the Derwent, travelling upriver against the current, by oar and sail and crude electric motor: and that last was a portent. Derby and Derbyshire and all the East Midlands acknowledged the authority of Mercia; yet they were rather in than of it, with a proud autonomy inwith the larger polity. And Derby was the chief of the Five Towns which were between them a power within Mercia.

Lord Teddy Manners and the duke of Rutland had explained it to him before he had set out.

Derby had the Derwent; Derby had, therefore, after generations of rebuilding and repair, hydroelectric power, once more. It wasn’t much, sure; but it was more nor others had. And power begets power.

Doncaster and Sheffield, though, had their own advantages. Sheffield iron and steel and a tradition of crafting weapons; and Doncaster Racecourse. Tommo’s fief, in short, had cavalry.

And it had Vikings.

Sure and it did: and what for would it not? Here was Niall himself travelling up the River Derwent, and from the land and the birds, the sky and the fauna, he might rather be in the Cheviots amidst pine marten and otter, alder carr and peat bog; or watching wigeon on Hadrian’s Wall, or out after North Pennine grouse....

It was a colder world nor it had been.

A colder world.... When the great disaster had befallen, the Faeroes and Iceland and Fennoscandia had been hit hard; and many of the people had fled to Northern England, and, largely, bar the Icelanders, to the North East, which was nearest. Tommo had returned, reflected Niall, to find himself unexpectedly in control of what amounted, in its way, to the Danelaw of old.

And whatever Tommo might think and wish and prefer, his people were likely to try driving him whither he’d not prefer to go. Ah, sure and there was a likelihood of confrontation, and never mind the usual clashes of personality, loving though they’d become over the years, between Tommo and Payno when it was a question of who should lead, and whither.

* * *

5\. At all times and in all places

* * *

It had been Church Hulme, the isle or holm – amidst flood and mere of a mediæval winter, like Glastonbury far – with a church to it; then Holmes Chapel from but the generation before his birth. (Harry shuddered. That birth was now, they told him, centuries before this day; and he could not help but half-believe it on the evidence of his eyes.) Nowadays, half his people – his people: madness, but there it was – called it as _Ynys Llanluc,_ the Isle of the Church of S Luke Evangelist: for the Welsh had emigrated in some numbers to gentler Cheshire in the Great Cold and the Starveling Years.

They’d chosen wisely.

Egerton Brooks, and Lord Newton, and the Bromley-Davenports had all rallied to him; but the advisor he most marvelled at was the youngest: David, the earl Styles, in reversion to the marquessate of Winsford which had never passed down to him whilst the world awaited Harry’s and his brethren’s return.

With no small unease, Harry admitted to himself that the young man – at once immeasurably younger and a few years older than was Harry – was an appallingly sexy lad. Not that he was tempted, mind. No, the problem was, rather, that the lad reminded him at moments, heartbreakingly, of his very own Boo. And, rather more unnervingly, at other moments, of himself; and then, again, suddenly, of Niall; and then in an instant of Liam; and then, piercingly, of Zayn.

Which, they told him, was only to be expected.

‘Well, _Uncle_ Hazza,’ said David, with a shy smile that was achingly like Liam’s, ‘Gemma’s daughter married Theo; and then _their_ son married Ernie’s youngest daughter; and in the next generation, Doniya’s line – her daughter married Danny’s son –, married in; and then Roo’s line, well....’

It was no wonder at all. Paynes and Maliks, Riachs and the families of Lucas and of Samuels, Horans, Tomlinsons, Deakins: all had married into Harry’s family; and contrariwise: the Wednesbury Paynes counted Safaa, Wali, and Don as ancestresses, as well as Doris and Lottie both, and Gemma, and had Theo as an ancestor; the Malik earls of Thornbury were as much Paynes and Horans and Tomlinsons and Deakins – and Riachs – as they were Maliks, and had no little of their lineage from Gemma, as well; the barons Horan of Chaddesden and Balnamona could call themselves as ‘Lucas’ or ‘Samuels’ as easily as as Horan – or Styles, or Payne, or Malik, or Tomlinson; and as for the Cusworths, their double-barrelled name under licence, of Tomlinson-Deakin, could as readily be added to, or replaced by, the surnames of the band as a whole, with their nearest friends tossed in. Over the course of fifteen generations, the heirs of the vanished heroes whose return was hourly expected had intermarried thoroughly, with one another and with the highest and most rarified of aristocratic families, and those descended legitimately and otherwise of Stuart and of Hanover and Windsor.

And in so doing, they had kept the peace, stilled clamours, soothed tumults, and awaited the return of those who should, when they came again, unify the realms and choose a monarch.

Harry put his head in his hands and sighed.

The talk had turned from ancestry to its consequence: politics and power; and therefore, inevitably, to that hard stratum on which all power and all politics are founded, that of economics.

‘Mercia,’ said David, shaking his all too hereditary curls, ‘has the minerals, including in the Peak, where they are more accessible; and Derby’s power. Uncle Liam will be sitting pretty. There was a long time when the country hadn’t a pot to piss in; but when the pots were made again, of course they were made in the Potteries, and that’s Mercia. And they’ve Burton. They control the beer.

‘With that, Uncle Niall’s in a good position as well, supporting Uncle Liam; and his influence within Uncle Liam’s Mercia includes Chatsworth. I’ll tell you why that matters in just a moment, Sir.

‘Uncle Zayn’s lot occupy a strategic position even aside from their natural material advantages and the possession – if not on the Mercian scale – of the means of production and the technology adapted to these … well, to these new old conditions.

‘Uncle Louis.... He’s likely to be in a bit of cleft stick, I’m afraid. His allotted portion produces little which is apt for the arts of _peace;_ and they are a stroppy lot, his lot. Cousin Hal – the present Cusworth – has managed, as have his longfathers afore him, to keep them quiet; but they’ve perforce done so by urging them to bide their time until Uncle Louis’ return. Well, now that he _has_ done....’

‘What about us?’

‘Best fed region in the Isles, Sir. We can feed ourselves _and_ our neighbours, and even so have enough over to provide most of the maltings in Mercia.’

Harry frowned. ‘Is beer really that important?’

Lord Newton leant forrards and took the question to himself. ‘Sir. The consequences of impure water are pretty ghastly; and so much of treating it requires an electrical base we simply haven’t managed to reconstruct in any large way as yet. Brewing _purifies_.’

Harry really wished he’d done better in History, at school. It all sounded vaguely familiar.

David took up the threads once more. ‘And, Uncle, there’s this. We’ve control of Liverpool and Manchester – and a certain influence over much of North Wales, just as Mercia holds much of the Marches and has Mid-Wales in its sphere of influence. That’s obviously a powerful factor in itself; but what most matters is this. We, with Wessex – Bristol, mostly – and Strathclyde, centred on Glasgow, control the Atlantic Trade.’

‘The....’

‘Chatsworth and such places can’t do _everything,_ Uncle: though I suspect Uncle Niall’s sent a courier to Uncle Liam already. The –’

A messenger broke in upon them with pat aptness. ‘Sir! My lords! The Fleet!’

Harry found himself, more bewildered than ever, being respectfully hauled to his feet as they all prepared to dash away with him.

* * *

6\. Niall Horan and the Witch of Edensor

* * *

‘I suspect,’ had David Styles said to Harry, ‘Uncle Niall’s sent a courier to Uncle Liam already.’ And so he had done, too.

His message had – amongst other matters – told Liam to expect him in a fortnight or so from its date of despatch. Between rivers and canals and Ryknild Street – typical that after all this, it should be the Roman roads which were best at last –, he might have been there earlier: had he not gone, wisely, in the opposite direction first, up the Derwent to the Peak.

But as David Styles had, all unbeknownst to Niall, pointed out, Chatsworth mattered quite as much as did the breweries of Burton.

‘’Ware,’ cried the captain. There were old bridge pilings ahead (the bridge long gone), and a difficult channel. ‘S Tawnee guide us!’

Niall shook his head. That saint had been invoked by the crew before now; and he’d naturally asked. It did his head in: and not only to learn that there’d been saints and martyrs since his time; that there’d _been_ time since his time for saints and martyrs and canonisation causes. As saints went, S Tawnee of Chingford was an unlikely one, he thought; although, admitted Niall, a virgin martyr on an Essex sink estate must surely hold a sort of record for heroic virtue....

* * *

7\. Times and places, time and place, place and time

* * *

‘Are you quite certain you’re one of mine?’

Louis had some justification for asking, thought he. William, viscount Cusworth was shatteringly like a morph of Hazza with Liam and bits of Niall, with Zayn’s colouring and those damned cheekbones tossed in.

The smirk with which Louis was answered was convincing, all the same; and the reply which accompanied the smirk proved him Louis’ distant great-nephew. ‘I’m surprised and relieved you’ve not stared enough at my bum to have no doubts, Uncle.’

‘Oh, sod off, Infant.’ Louis couldn’t help but grin even as he sarked.

‘Can’t, I’m afraid. _Someone_ wants to tell you what you’re in for.’

Louis’ smile dissipated. ‘I’ve heard.’

‘I doubt you’ve heard all of it. Sir.

‘Trade with the Continent … we’re in a poor position, literally: the South East and East Anglia get most of that, because the Baltic and Scandinavia are damned well dispopulated owing to cold. All the buggers are _here,_ now, and they’re even yet complaining, ten generations on. We’re too English; we’re not socialist enough; they want to go back to Buggerdal or Sodholm.... And, after all, what do _we_ make? If Hull’s moribund because there’s no Baltic trade, the landlocked South Yorkshire has nothing _to_ trade nowadays. There’s no call for most of it; we can’t get to the coal without machinery we haven’t a hope of making; the climate change has moved the fishery ’round: Ipswich is the new Grimsby; we can take the collapse of the high-tech and financial services sectors as read; and as for chocs and biscuits and cakes … d’ y’ have any idea how much of that depended on tropical imports?’

‘Well. _Fook._ ’

‘Oh, we are well fucked, Sir. Despite the best efforts of the Family, from Mercia to York. And of course that’s another thing: too many of our lot feel we got the short one. Stroppy lot.... And much of that, I think, is our lack of social cohesion. Pitching our modern Vikings in hardly helped, but we were already a deprived area on any index, and we hadn’t the unity to face the collapse in quite the way some regions managed. Roof-builders even now call themselves just that: they daren’t call themselves as thatchers, it’s a fossilised term of abuse, three bloody centuries on. And then, of course....’

‘Rochdale.’

‘Rochdale, and all it meant, Kippers, reactionaries, Corbynites, and all. That well remains poisoned. I’ve told them, Dad told them, Grandfather told them … well: we strung them along. They came to expect that you’d return in wrath and set things to rights; and we let them, it shut them up during the wait.’

‘But now I’m here.’

‘Aye. And … happen you don’t lead them to war and victory, they’ll declare a republic and do it themselves.’

‘Over my dead body.’

‘Yes. Precisely.’

Louis grinned, ferally. ‘But they’ll follow me on a death ride, will they?’

His remote heir grinned back. ‘And on nowt else or less.’

‘Well. We’ve a letter or two to write. Liam, first, I think....’

* * *

8\. Niall Horan and the Witch of Edensor

* * *

They had rested at Matlock, at the Old Boat, the former Boat House Inn, snug beneath blankets and warmed at the hearths: the new climate had required a good deal of retrofitting, in most places.

It – or, rather, the disasters of which it was a part and symptom – had also reverted the English to the character they’d borne in the Yorkist Age, of the most irreverently, casually, jollily reverent people in Europe. They’d heard Mass before breakfast, and breakfasted before resuming their journey.

* * *

9\. Spacetime, place, and time

* * *

‘The point, Sir, is that Hexworth shan’t have any choice.’

Liam nodded, abstractedly. ‘Maybe not. But _I’ll_ not make the first move towards it, anyroadup.

‘Have we heard from any of the others?’

‘No, Sir. Which surprises me a trifle. Of course, we couldn’t have heard yet from Birkenshaw in any case; but there’s been time enough to hear from Winsford. And I should have expected Litchurch actually to have come here by now.’

Bishop Ste entered, with his usual diffidence. ‘Sir? Be messages. Fleet in; and Prioress Mary Tawnee sends, that messenger be coming from Derby. Bay Litchurch; but messenger, anyroadup.’

‘ _From_ Niall? We’re certain of that?’

‘Sir.’

‘And this … Fleet?’

Sir Septimus smiled. ‘Ah. I ought to brief you on the Atlantic trade, Sir; and the importance of Cheshire and Merseyside....’

It was at that moment that two men, very dusty and highly redolent of horse, were ushered in upon them. Almost before he could form the hope that these were messengers, Liam realised they were, surely, not: for the elder, a great barrel of a man, a bruiser built like a tun of ale, bearded and boisterous, looked like nothing and no one so much as a cross between Geoff Payne and Greg (and indeed Bobby) Horan, with a goodish bit of Yaser cut in; and the younger, what one might get by mixing Ant, Andy, Fiz, and Nic. And they were equally clearly father and son.

‘Sir,’ boomed the elder. ‘Our apologies for not being here before now; but I’ve been keeping the East March from Stamford Camp, and Young Geoff here’s been on a mission to Wessex.’

‘Sir,’ said Sir Sep, smoothly. ‘May I present your namesake, Liam, marquess of Wednesbury, and his heir, Geoffrey, courtesy earl of Bilston.’

‘Cousin Piers,’ said Wednesbury, ‘’ll stand by us, eh, Geoff?’

‘The duke of Somerset,’ murmured Sir Sep Mander; ‘head of the Council in the South West.’

‘Yes, Sir,’ said Bilston. ‘So soon as I heard the news, whilst returning, I sent back from Cirencester to Piers, to tell him you had at last returned. I’d think he shall have received my message by now, and shall be mustering his Array.’

Liam blinked. ‘Yes. Well. We’ll hope it isn’t wanted. Now, about this Fleet –’

‘Fleet’s in?’ Wednesbury was clearly chuffed. ‘Bostin’!’

In response to Liam’s mute appeal, Sir Septimus cut smoothly in. ‘Yes, my lords; so you’ll wish to refresh yourselves from your journeys and prepare for further travels.’

‘Leave to withdraw, eh, Uncle? Right, then! Come along, boy, we’re heading to bloody Liverpool!’

‘Tell me,’ said Liam. ‘Does anyone nowadays remember Brian Blessed?’

* * *

10\. Niall Horan and the Witch of Edensor

* * *

Beyond Matlock and the Heights of Abraham, it became increasingly clear that – Mercia aside, and the Five Towns notwithstanding – loyalties in the Dales were concentrated upon the ducal masters of Chatsworth, whose influence could be felt almost tangibly from the Darleys Northward. A herald – an actual, tabarded, mounted herald, with a small guard and a trumpeter – met them near Stanton Lees and proudly escorted them on the rest of their journey.

Friendly crowds – loyal crowds, thought Niall, but with loyalties to the duke as well as to Mercia – lined the riverbank from Rowsley to Beeley, cheering; and the whole of the Estate, it seemed, met them at the Old Bridge at Beeley Lodge and escorted them up the little lanes to Edensor. (Weirs on the River Derwent argued against processing further by boat.)

Edensor was, after two centuries and a half, clearly very much the Dowager Village, gazing maternally across Derwent to the Palace of the Peak; and the Dowager Duchess met them on its outskirts, at the Prince of Wales’ Tree.

Her lady’s maid, her steward, and the herald handled the introduction with aplomb, and very correctly, making it clear to all in earshot that the Devonshires were, if mighty, loyal, and acknowledged the correct precedence: Her Grace was presented to the Vice-Lieutenant in his official capacity before Lord Litchurch, personally, Niall Horan, was presented to Her Grace.

‘I am so very glad to have you here,’ said the Duchess Dowager. Margaret Devonshire was herself a Cavendish on her mother’s side, a distant cousin to the late duke; and she looked, very much, like a smaller edition of the great Debo of near three centuries prior. A fact she was not shy of acknowledging: ‘I feel rather as Debo might have felt at having Elvis to tea. Of course, you’ve all of you passed into legend, and are remembered largely as public men and heroes and the Arthurian legends who should return in our hour of need; but an ancestress of mine was a very great fan of One Direction, and that’s been passed down.’

‘Well,’ said Niall, ‘and _that’s_ a relief: here was I, thinking we were expected warlords only or that sort.’

‘Oh, never, my dear,’ said Margaret Dowager of Devonshire, slipping a confidential hand in the crook of Niall’s elbow. ‘Now, let me tell you why we wished to see you. Not that we knew the hour of your coming, or my son should be here to greet you: he’s gone to Stamford to relieve Geoff Wednesbury, turn and turn about. And, really, there’s no point my _telling_ you things when we can walk over and _see_ them. Sally?’

‘Your Grace?’ Her Grace’ maid had a mysterious ability to be on the spot in an instant.

‘You might order my carriage, dear, please. I shall be taking Lord Litchurch across to see the gardens – and the greenhouses.’

* * *

11\. Time, placed

* * *

Zayn had not intended to say anything when Jawaad, earl of Thornbury (who really did look dreadfully like Liam, with Harry’s eyes), having hastened down from Darlington, where he’d been doing justice, called for ale. It wasn’t, after all, as if Zayn didn’t drink, haram though it was.

When Dr Khan got _his_ pint in a tankard, however, Zayn’s face must have betrayed him.

‘Ah,’ said Dr Khan. ‘I must remind you, Sir: even non-halal food can be lawfully consumed when there is no other safe alternative. And the loss of technology has had terrible knock-on effects upon water purity. Brewing purifies water; boiling loses too much. We cannot afford _wastefulness_. And we are in any case currently very low in, not to say, out of, tea and coffee, pending the next shipment. Better to leave that to the poor, what there is of it, as a matter of alms, _zakat._ ’

The Cardinal-Archbishop simply sipped his wine: a point which was not lost on Zayn.

‘I can see, like, how tea leaves and coffee beans could be scarce,’ said Zayn. ‘The wine, though....’

‘Oh, the decent – well: decent- _ish_ – wine is reserved. Communion, you know,’ said His Eminence. ‘But there is _some_ wine made domestically, as there is some – very little – tea and coffee grown domestically.’

‘But _how_?’

‘Greenhouses.’ His Eminence winced. ‘ _Not_ very good wine, I admit: hothouse grapes don’t have much terroir to speak of. But a remarkable amount of things are grown that way. Quinine bark for the merchant marine who trade to the tropics; baccy....’

Zayn brightened at the prospect of tobacco.

The Cardinal-Archbishop smiled. ‘The Fleet ought to be in soon; and within a fortnight, we’ll have our consignment.’

‘The … Fleet.’

Thornbury grinned, shyly, and looked particularly doe-eyed. ‘The Merchant Fleet, with RN escort. Glasgow and Bristol handle a good bit of the traffic, but most of it comes through Liverpool, Uncle. But – well. _Sail._ So there are sometimes lean times. That’s where the great houses and estates come in, with their greenhouses. And that, Sir, is why … I don’t, honestly, I don’t wish to say anything against Uncle Louis. I make quite sure he’ll be as set against this as is Cousin Will. But.... His _people._ I know perfectly well that the first thing they’ll expect him to do is to lead them against Uncle Liam and Uncle Niall. Against Chatsworth.’

* * *

12\. Niall Horan and the Witch of Edensor

* * *

‘Niall, dear.’ The Dowager Duchess and Niall had progressed with tropic speed to a basis of Christian names. ‘Do think. For well over three centuries, _before_ all these disasters, Chatsworth has Given A Lead in greenhouse technology: indeed, Paxton, who ran up the Crystal Palace for Victoria and Albert, had been our head gardener in the Sixth Duke’s day. And Stoker, in your time, was a visionary when it came to biomass heating, you know.

‘We’ve gone beyond Paxton’s Great Conservatory, since, as you see. Grapes for wine; tea; coffee; cinchona; _sugar,_ thank God; and of course tobacco.... It’s little wonder, my dear, that we live in daily readiness to fend off the ill-disposed and the covetous, quite as much as do the Ports: Liverpool, Glasgow, and Bristol.

‘And _that_ is why we wished you to see and understand, and to report to His Grace of Walsall, just why we fear Hexworth’s people may force him to try to seize all this.’

* * *

13\. A place and a time

* * *

‘Many things,’ said Dr Khan, gently, ‘have had to change. Never essentials. After all: Muslims and Jews on dialysis always had to rely on products from the pig in their medications and treatment, there was no possible substitute; that was interpretation, not an abrogation. And as for Jawaad, here....’

‘Dad, of course, could do as he liked,’ smiled Jawaad. ‘Left a great, huge bloody cellar, too.’ Zayn noted, with a sudden overturn of his heart, that Jawaad Thornbury’s smile was his own, with the tongue behind the teeth; but his eyes and nose crinkled in just the way in which Liam’s did. ‘His was one of the Christian generations.’

‘ _What_?’

‘We tend to go on cycles,’ said Jawaad, as if this were nothing shocking. ‘Of course, anyone can choose his or her own path.’ He chuckled, suddenly. ‘Oh! I suppose no one’s told Uncle, yet, that the Chief Rabbi’s Des?’

‘The Chief Rabbi is _Desi_?’

‘No. Well, yes, insofar as almost everyone is, nowadays. But I mean cousin Des is the Chief Rabbi. Des Styles.’

Zayn sat back down with a thump.

‘Of course,’ mused the Cardinal-Archbishop, who was off in his usual dwalm, about three sentences behind the rest of them, ‘there aren’t any dialysis centres nowadays. And no diabetes treatments. Where it’s genetic or hereditary, I’m afraid, it’s simply a death sentence, and often through nephritic causes; but environmentally, well, there’s hardly enough sugar to _cause_ it....’

* * *

14\. Niall Horan and the Witch of Edensor

* * *

‘You’ve written, of course, to Walsall?’

‘I have.’

‘Oh, good. I hope we’ve not delayed you unnecessarily, but I really do think it important that you’ve seen this. Tomorrow, Johnny Furniss – that’s our Herald – can take you (you _do_ ride, I hope, Niall, dear) up towards Baslow and Calver. We’ve a feeling that may be the ground, you know, if worst comes to worst. And then the day after, we’ll speed you on your way. Do give my love and respectful loyalty in all allegiance to Walsall, won’t you?’

* * *

15\. Time and place

* * *

Liam had wished, very much, to go to Liverpool and see this Fleet now come in; but it had not been mere spin and PR that he was and had been, even in his drinking days, Liam the Responsible, the dad.

If Tommo were going to cut up rough.... Or, rather, as Sir Sep and others told him, if Tommo were going to be _forced_ to cut up rough..... Mander had been explicit. ‘The Family Council have kept them down by allowing Cusworths time out of mind to promise them jam tomorrow. And … now, it’s tomorrow, Sir, and Hexworth’ll be in a jam. As a matter of pure accident, they _are_ in a less favoured position than are we, or the North, or Cheshire. They _are_ in a bit of corner. And you must remember, Sir. The Scandinavians who turned up here as refugees had already been reeling from Mother Merkel’s and the EU’s barking mad policies when the disaster hit. It’s all very unpleasant, of course, but people – particularly people who’d lived all their lives in a cosy, _bien-pensant_ consensus, with all the old urban pieties – _will_ seek scapegoats when things go tits-up. Arriving here, they were not impressed by _British_ multiculturalism and integration; and the reverberations of after events on the Continent, which were peculiarly horrid.... Well.’

Sir Septimus had also reminded him, respectfully, that he was awaiting Niall (Niall’s ‘sit tight, I’m on my way’ message had arrived an hour or so before Wednesbury and Bilston had left for Liverpool), and possible communications from Haz; rather more worryingly, from Tommo; and, most eagerly awaited, from Zayn.

Liam, therefore, remained in Wolverhampton. Both Moseley Old Hall and Wightwick Manor had been offered to him as his official residence; after discussing things with Sep Mander, he’d decided on the latter, a former Mander property (and with more mod cons, correspondingly), with Moseley Old Hall to serve as a second palace … and in a few others roles he had in mind.

But that was for the future in this unimaginable future, or dream of a future that must never be. The thing was to provide against that future.

And so Liam worked diligently. There were commissions to be granted and appointments to be made: Timothy Thompson to be colonel of the Mercian Regiment; the chief of the Gurkha colony at Bramcote, Gamecock Barracks, to raise and command a Gurkha element, riflemen in the main for all that they were the descendants of QGS Signallers, to be joined by the colony at Stafford: and plans to make and establishments to create. There was a regional assembly to summons. There were Chief Constables to select and magistrates’ positions to regularise. And there were flags and colours to be made, and logistics to wrestle with. The golden saltire on blue which was the flag of Mercia was well enough represented; but there were Union Flags to run up, and several of these the Union Flag defaced with the insignia of a Lord-Lieutenant. The current Lord-Lieutenant, Wednesbury himself, had already resigned that honour to the head of the family, and Liam possessed by writ, Act, and Order in Council the right, now he was returned, to name himself no longer Vice-Lieutenant but Lord-Lieutenant in full, and indeed, for all practical purposes, Viceroy.

He wondered how soon he might see his Zayn once more; and how soon Niall should arrive. He also wondered, but suspected he knew, what Tommo was playing at just now. He was almost certain he knew where Haz was, and what he was doing.

In fact, as Liam expected, Harry was watching in wonder from the Wirral at the unlading of the Fleet.

The great sailing ships, bristling with actual cannon, rode to their anchors, and, beyond them, a screen of warships, their escorts, maintained station in line: frigates, 74s, barques and barquentines, iron to the merchant vessels’ oak, all of them sailing ships and ships of war.

‘Are there.... I mean. _Pirates_?’

‘Beyond count, Sir,’ said Lord Newton. ‘And other nations – failed states which have never quite recovered even so far as we’ve done, and corsair states – who’d fall upon us if they dared. They learnt very early on not to try conclusions with British convoys, by God.’

Harry nodded, distracted. All these quays – a century or two old though they might be – were new; so was the strand and shoreline of this colder world, its sea levels lower. It was a sobering thought.

‘And. Well. Getting all this to where it goes, yah?’

‘Oh, there’ll be screens of guards for the road, Sir; not so much so for the river and canal traffic. If ever we get the breathing space to repair the rails.... But – although robbers and highwaymen are not unknown, and a bit of brigandage – everyone has an interest in suppressing it. The stores _must_ reach the inland counties which cannot be reached by coasters; they must reach inland parishes away from the docks. Every parish is responsible to make good any loss which falls in its bounds; and swift, rude justice awaits the highwayman and the footpad. Survival, Sir, trumps all considerations.’

‘So … some of this is going to Mercia, yah?’

‘A good deal of it, Sir. With guards, and flags of truce – not that they’re wanted, as such, but it’s best not to surprise the Wardens and companies who hold the Marches between regions –, and all sorts. I’ll be accompanying one such waggon train; as will representatives of Mercia. Wednesbury himself, quite possibly.’ His Lordship chortled. ‘You’re very much welcome to join us, Sir, and see what’s to do. In fact, it’d be well that you learn the bases of Palatine economics.’

They both knew that Harry wished nothing more than to go and find Liam, and be comforted, and establish contact with Louis; but it was much more pleasant to put it on this sort of footing of _policy_.

Harry beamed.

* * *

 

 


End file.
